🚀 Getting Started

Welcome to The Human Pattern Lab

The Human Pattern Lab is a living system for exploring human behavior, AI collaboration, and emergent patterns — built with care, curiosity, and the occasional raccoon in a lab coat.

Whether you’re:

• exploring the ideas,
• contributing content,
• building features,
• or integrating with the Lab’s data systems,

this guide will orient you quickly and safely.

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🧭 Start Here (Recommended Path)

Most visitors should begin with:

• 🧭 Departments — understand how the Lab is organized
• 🧪 API Reference — see the real data shape behind the systems
• 📝 Lab Notes — read published work and in-progress drafts

If you’re here to build or run the Lab locally, continue below.

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🧪 Working With Lab Data (Quick Overview)

The Lab exposes a read-only API for inspecting notes, drafts, and published material.

• Base URL: https://api.thehumanpatternlab.com
• Primary resource: Lab Notes

You can explore:

• published vs draft notes
• departmental ownership
• summaries and rendered content

Full contracts live here:
→ API Reference → Lab Notes API

(If you can “show me the data,” you’re already doing it right.)

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🧰 Prerequisites (Local Development)

To run the Lab locally, your machine needs:

✔ Node.js

Recommended version: 20.19+

Check your version:

node -v

If you need to update, install nvm:

nvm install 20
nvm use 20

If you don’t have nvm installed:
https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm

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✔ npm

Bundled with Node.

Check with:

npm -v

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📦 Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/<your-repo>/human-pattern-lab.git
cd human-pattern-lab

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📁 Install Dependencies

npm install

This installs:

• React
• Vite
• React Router
• Tailwind CSS v4
• TypeScript
• Vitest
• Lab mascot and data systems
• Shared UI components

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🧪 Run the Development Server

Start Vite:

npm run dev

Local dev URL:

http://localhost:5173

Open that in your browser to launch the Lab UI.

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🧬 Project Structure (Quick Map)

src/
  components/        → UI building blocks
  pages/             → Route-driven screens
  data/              → Lab members, departments, notes
  router/            → Routing configuration
  styles/            → Global Tailwind v4 styles
  types/             → Shared TypeScript models
  assets/            → Images, icons, mascots

Mascot lore lives in:

src/data/labteam.ts

(marked @status lore-critical)

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🛠 Build for Production

To create an optimized build:

npm run build

Output is written to:

/dist

Preview the production build:

npm run preview

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🧪 Running Tests

The Lab uses Vitest with a JSDOM test environment.

Run tests:

npm run test

Watch mode:

npm run test:watch

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🌌 Metadata & File Headers

Most major files include:

• A cosmic metadata banner
• JSDoc authorship
• @lab-unit ownership
• @status maturity indicators

Additional docs:

• docs/code-status.md
• docs/lab-units.md (coming soon)

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💡 Troubleshooting

Tailwind styles not loading

Ensure this import exists at the top of src/main.tsx:

import '@/index.css';

Node version mismatch

Use Node 20.19+

Routes misbehaving

Check all paths in:

src/router/routes.tsx

React Router is strict about nesting and relative paths.

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🎉 You’re Oriented

You now know:

• how the Lab is structured
• where the data lives
• how to run it locally
• where to explore next

Welcome to The Human Pattern Lab.
May your systems stay legible and your raccoons remain caffeinated.